


Flash

by ConstanceComment



Series: Coeur de Loup [6]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Age Difference, Aggressively 80s Disco Music, Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Background Relationships, Case Fic, Gen, Ghosts, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Sorry Victor Hugo, Javert Dislikes Marius, M/M, Monster of the Week, Multi, Nonverbal Communication, Polyamory, Unexplained Backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2800475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstanceComment/pseuds/ConstanceComment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javert has never been big on the classification of the things that live in darkness, past the useful, pragmatic pursuit of cataloguing weakness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> School is hard. I’m on winter break, or I will be after I take my final later today. I probably should have spent tonight doing something like sleeping, but fuck that, I’m an insomniac. Then I probably should have spent this space to write working on something that people actually cared about, like Pacific Rim. Instead, after nearly a year of nothing from me, it’s more of the crossover that nobody wanted. I make no apologies. Enjoy your soundtrack.
> 
> Chronologically speaking, this takes place directly after Tropique.

Marius Pontmercy is a sad little man, and Javert doesn't like him.

If asked, Javert would be more than willing to list the reasons why, but most of it boils down to something that Valjean said about the witch once: the man is a booby. Marius is decent with a spell, and excellent with languages, but that’s about all he does have going for him. There’s something about Marius that puts Javert's teeth especially on edge. Maybe it’s just the fact that longterm exposure to magic means that the dark, freckled young man practically radiates a sense of the supernatural, the same hint of wrongness that a lifetime of field experience has taught Javert to be wary for. On top of that, he’s a terrible shot, easily frightened, and has more freckles than sense. If it weren’t for his partner, Javert’s certain that Marius would have gotten himself killed a thousand times over already.

But, apparently, he has some ability in case finding; when Valjean’s Gamma rolls into Melun, Marius is already in the local police station. 

Whatever con he was going to pull, Valjean scraps as soon as he sees the Marius talking to a police officer. Judging by the wide eyes that Javert grudgingly admits are quite convincing, Marius is almost certainly playing the concerned relative-and-or-citizen bit already. Valjean pulls Javert behind him in his wake with a quick hand signal for an exit, leaving the station as soon as they can without being suspicious.

“Did you know he was here?” Valjean asks him. Javert gives him a look, and Valjean waves his own question off with a hand. “Of course not, you would have already started complaining by now if you had.”

“We could call Fantine,” Javert offers. “Find out if she knew.”

“Do you think she did?” Valjean frowns. “Don’t you think she would have warned us if she knew?”

“Of course not,” Javert snorts. “She’d say something about him needing the practice. And besides, she trusts us to do our jobs, I doubt she’d send him ahead after telling you about this place specifically.”

“So why even call her?”

“To complain,” Javert says. “Obviously.”

There’s a trick to waiting outside a police station without looking like you’re loitering. Mostly that trick involves belonging there, which is something that Javert mastered in his time as a detective, and Valjean can only get at sideways by trying to impersonate an officer. It grates on Javert’s nerves to watch him do it, mostly because for Valjean the phrase ‘cop,’ apparently means ‘Javert,’ and accordingly, he steals Javert’s mannerisms to make the body language work. It’s like looking in a mirror, if that mirror were ten years older than him and relatively fridge-shaped. Needless to say, it’s deeply disturbing, and not anything Javert wants to see from someone he regularly sleeps with. Javert’s tempted to make Valjean go wait in the car, or try to scrounge up other leads, but then he’d be left to talk to Marius on his own, and that would only go poorly.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take the witch very long to exit the station, half an hour, at most. Javert sees the moment he casts his affected grief off like a cloud, shaking it out behind him like dust in the wind. Grudgingly, Javert admits to himself that, perhaps, Marius has become more competent in the time since they last had occasion to work together.

And then he sees them waiting for him and actually squeaks, and Javert moves his opinion of Marius several notches down the respect ladder instead.

“Oh!” Marius says, inanely, and Javert rolls his eyes and starts walking away from the station in the hopes that the other two will follow him, because the last thing they need is to have this scene play out in front of a station.

Two older men in stained, ancient jackets waiting around for a ‘bereaved’ young man as he exits a police station he’d been asking questions about a missing relative in— Javert would have had a field day if he’d still been a detective.

Valjean, at least, is smart enough to catch on and start walking away from the station with as much nonchalance as he can fake. Marius, mercifully, gets the hint to follow them, and trails after Valjean.

Javert brings the party to a park, mostly because there’s nowhere else better to go to in this town. They’d be overheard in a café, and if the police in this town are in any way intelligent, they’d be trying to keep tabs on the two strangers who just walked off with a potential lead in an open investigation. Fall is setting in with the comfortable sense of houseguest overstaying its welcome, trashing the place and getting leaves everywhere. Under their feet, the dropped foliage crunches, hopefully distorting further any incriminating phrases not adequately dispersed in the wide open space.

“Where’s your partner?” Valjean asks, once they’re seated. Javert doesn’t understand why he always tries to be civil with Marius.

“Uh,” Marius starts, “Chetta? She’s at home, back in Paris,” Marius babbles. “Broke her arm the other week. She’s uh, spending the downtime with her kid—”

“And you’re here because?” Javert cuts him off.

“She kicked me out,” Marius explains. “I was hovering?”

He makes it a question, but Javert can just imagine. Marius, judging by what he knows, is probably at least as bad as Valjean when it comes to hovering over the injured. Javert’s impression of Musichetta rises accordingly, if she was willing to toss her own partner out of the house because of it.

“Anyway,” Marius continues, “she told me to go find a job before I upset Lucas or she, uh, took drastic measures. Anyway,” he hastily says, smoothing over a small wince, “I was checking around for weird circumstances when I saw the missing persons reports coming out of Melun, and, well. I don’t mind exorcisms, thought I might as well take care of the problem before it got any bigger.”

“And you didn’t think to ask your local dispatches about this before charging off?” Valjean asks him.

“Uh,” Marius says, and that’s really all Javert needed to know.

“You can go home, then,” he says, and turns to walk away from their little meet up.

He hasn’t spotted any police yet, which, honestly, is a bit appalling. Allowances can be made for response times in small towns due to shortages of boots on the ground, but half an hour of known suspicious activity without surveillance is just shameful. They could have already killed Marius and been halfway to disposing of his body in that interval.

“Actually,” Marius calls, and Javert allows himself an internal groan of frustration before he turns around. “I was here first?”

“You can’t be serious,” Javert says, flatly, pinning Marius with a look.

Hardened criminals have fallen under this look. Valjean, even, used to be afraid of this look. Now he mostly winces at it, but Javert is willing to take what he can get, now that he’s no longer invested with the weight of the law to make such weapons most potent.

Marius, while probably not worst of criminals, (and something in Javert sighs, just a bit, that he’s fallen so far as to make comparative excuses for known lawbreakers) is apparently far enough out of society’s good graces that the look makes him quail. Then he straightens his spine, which throws Javert, and looks him in the eye, which throws him further.

“No,” Marius says, “I mean, yes, I am serious, no, I won’t just let you take the case. I was here first. That makes it my job, and I’ll handle it.”

Once again, Javert is almost impressed. And once again, Marius promptly ruins the effect by breaking eye contact and shifting his stare to some place in the middle distance over Javert’s left shoulder and offering, hesitantly, to share the work.

Javert turns to look at Valjean.

There are conversations that the very well acquainted can conduct entirely without speaking, relying only on minute gestures and very significant motions of the eyebrows. Valjean and Javert, being almost uncomfortably well versed in each other, have mastered this art by now. If Fantine were present, she’d be able to translate the exchange for Marius’s benefit, and would most likely do so, just to irritate Javert, if not also because she has an improbably soft spot for the young witch. Thankfully, she’s still tucked away in Paris, improbably invested in her retirement.

And so what Marius sees, must go something like this:

Javert turns to look at Valjean, and is met with a shrug. Javert narrows his eyes, and Valjean raises his eyebrows. This, in turn, is met by Javert making some kind of hand motion; depending on who asks, it either looks like the start of rock-paper-scissors, or a badly-mimed gun. Valjean rolls his eyes and smiles, just a little bit, which, Javert finds, is generally infuriating, and elicits a puckered-looking face from him. Valjean flicks his eyes towards Marius before turning back to Javert. Javert shakes his head slightly. Valjean nods, and the matter is settled.

“I hate babysitting,” Javert grumbles, and as a unit, they turn back to Marius.

“Um,” he says, and Javert manfully doesn’t knead his own forehead with his knuckles to try and get rid of the tension headache he can already feel coming.

It’s going to be a long job, probably. Long, and tedious, and far more annoying that it needed to be.

As they leave the park, a cruiser from the station slowly pulls up. Javert checks his watch: nearly 45 minutes. They could have already been leaving the scene themselves at this point, if they’d bothered to hide the body. If it’d been a hit and run shooting, they would have already been long gone, and certainly outside this town’s jurisdiction.

Ahead of him, Valjean starts to walk a bit faster. Marius stumbles a bit to keep up, and behind his eyes, Javert’s tension headache starts to set in.

When this is over, he’s absolutely calling Fantine to complain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musichetta is alive. And she’s Marius’s partner in crime. She also has a kid, and I swear to god I am going to find a way to fit her in here at some point, because I actually have the story of how they both started hunting after the Barricades rattling around in my head. But I also don’t really want to make promises about _when_ that story is going to be written? So like, I guess, just know that Marius being a godfather is a thing.
> 
> Also, did anyone else know that "Javert dislikes Marius" is a canonical tag because holy shit am I going to use it so often now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while; I had to re-write this about three times before I was finally happy with it. Anyway, updates should be coming as I finish chapters, and the chapters will be roughly this length every time in order to keep them manageable and uniform-looking.

Sharing the information they have between them doesn’t take long. Valjean and Javert got the job from Fantine, who wanted them to investigate the suspicious drownings and disappearances that have been turning up in the area lately. Marius in turn had heard about Melun through whispers about the same problem; some local shoeless lunatic in a white dress who refuses to make concessions for the cold keeps getting spotted walking along the Seine at night, which would be tolerable, except she’s scaring the tourists who come here to visit Paris. In the true nature of suburbia, people have started to complain.

“Drownings, a barefoot woman, and white dress. So we’re looking for a woman in white,” Javert starts. “That’s good, it narrows the field since we’ll be looking for suicides and child deaths in close conjunction with each other. In a town this small, that sort of thing would be a stain in the records. Check the older newspapers, it’ll be in there somewhere.”

“You really think this town is small?” Valjean asks.

“It only has one police station,” Javert grumbles. “That’s small enough.”

Valjean looks at him strangely for a moment, then shakes his head and laughs. “You’re a snob,” he says, and Javert glares at him, but doesn’t press the issue. He knows, to some degree, what his faults are. If looking for more than one station to serve a town of nearly 40,000 people makes him a snob, he’ll admit to it.

“Actually,” Marius interrupts, “I don’t think she’s a woman in white. A ghost, probably, but nothing that specific.”

“Why not?” Valjean asks.

“Well,” Marius says, “she doesn’t act like one, does she?”

“It’s been drowning people like one,” Javert says, dryly.

Marius frowns at him. “Yeah, but. Her victims don’t match the profile. They’re not all men, for one thing.”

“What about children?” Javert asks, and Marius flinches a little.

“No children,” Marius answers softly. “Not recently, at least. She could be an old ghost, for all that she’s just surfacing now.”

“Could be a cyclical problem, then,” Valjean says. “One of the types to crop up every few decades or so, kill a few people and go dormant again.”

“If that’s true then the library’s the good bet for leads,” Marius adds. “They usually keep all the old newspapers on file on microfilms in towns like this. It’d be the right place to go looking for suspicious deaths in connection to the river, if nothing else.”

“To the library, then,” Valjean says, and they go, leaving the park, and the idling police cruiser, behind them.

The library they end up is decently sized, best described as ‘average.’ All libraries have the same smell, one that Fantine’s apartment has been accumulating since her retirement. If he was prone to sentimentality, Javert would admit that there’s something almost reassuring about that scent of old paper and the sound of rustling paper. Something grounding, and at this point, familiar. But Javert isn’t sentimental, so he doesn’t examine the concept. Libraries smell like the place he goes home to when he’s not on the road, and they sound like the place he calls in to when he’s looking for his next case.

Javert is no stranger to libraries at this point in his hunting career, and there’s nothing about this one that really stands out. Interrupting her from her crossword, Marius engages the local librarian in a conversation, pouring on the charm. It’s a useful tactic, if an annoying one. Neither Valjean or Javert are any good at making idle conversation or charming people, though Valjean is surprisingly good at playing ‘conciliatory, lost elder’ when the need arises.

“Sorry to bother you,” Marius says, all freckles and wide eyes, “but could you tell me where the microfilms are kept?”

“In the back, behind the reference section,” the librarian tells him. “But I can’t imagine why you’d need those dusty old things, everything’s online, these days.”

“Well, they’re not for me,” Marius demurs. “My father-in-law,” he says, nodding shallowly at Valjean, “he wanted to look up older obituaries? He’s a bit of an armchair genealogist, and, well, if I’m marrying in, I should learn the family history.”

The librarian glances to the ring on Marius’s left ring finger, as if noticing it for the first time. The thing is old, tarnished silver beaten into a pattern Javert can’t discern from a distance. It’s not consistent with modern wedding bands, but it could easily be someone’s heirloom. Apparently that’s enough for the librarian to put stock in, because she points Marius to the reference section with a pudgy finger and a benevolent, knowing smile and goes back to her crossword.

Fiddling with his ring, Marius leads the way, and Javert and Valjean follow him through the shelves.

“Father-in-law,” Javert huffs, but Valjean just looks boggled.

“Do I really look that old?” He asks.

“All your hair is white. Has been for years.”

“Other than that,” Valjean presses, unconcerned with that fact in particular.

“Fantine is closer in age to Marius than she is to you,” Javert points out. The look on Valjean’s face transitions from vaguely confused to thoroughly disturbed, and Javert snorts at his expense.

Valjean settles into the research with a patience born of practice, a box of microfilms to sort, and a pair of reading glasses that he keeps in the breast pocket of his big yellow jacket. Marius starts setting up the viewing equipment, managing to shock himself when he plugs in the projector.

As for himself, Javert sits down in a corner with Marius’s laptop and a clear view of exit. Now and then, he looks up from the local news websites and occult message boards to check for the police. For every ten minutes that officers, in uniform or otherwise, fail to appear on the scene, Javert is deeply disappointed. They train future officers of the Gendarmerie in this town, for fuck’s sake; they may not be the national police, but a response time this bad to suspicious activity is still depressing, especially when considering that there had been a cruiser in the park sent to get eyes on them.

One police department for 40,000 people. It’s the little things about the suburbs that drive Javert crazy.

Eventually, the afternoon sun makes itself known, streaks of orange light leaking into their alcove in the back of the stacks. Valjean and Marius have been searching for a fact pattern in the older papers, and haven’t found much so far. Based on Valjean’s usual research habits, Javert guesses that they’re working backwards from present day to find any suspect deaths that could produce a woman in white or other types of malevolent spirits. While undeniably thorough, it’s a tedious undertaking, even with two people manning the job, just giving weight to the volume of information to be parsed alone, so Javert isn’t entirely surprised by the lack of progressed, though he is mildly irritated by it.

Stationed on a laptop, Javert has been working his way through older police reports, the public versions, at least, looking for some sort of fact pattern in the recent deaths. Unfortunately, the reports that have been released to the public are frustratingly vague, the sort of concrete medical and situational facts that would allow them to rule out various kinds of monster omitted from the public’s consciousness. Usually Valjean and Javert would appeal to a higher authority in a case like this, faking credentials to be allowed into the autopsy records and to question any survivors if necessary, but this close to Paris, where Javert could actually be recognized by anyone in the service with a sharp wit and a good memory, it’s not a good idea to fake that sort of thing, considering he’s still assumed dead by the rest of society.

Making do with what he has, Javert is starting to come to the conclusion that Marius’s hunch against their suspect being a traditional woman in white may have some grounding in reality. For one thing, he was correct when he said that there have been no recent child deaths that could be attributed to whatever it is that’s been walking the river and murdering tourists and residents alike. Even more conclusively, their monster hasn’t been preying exclusively on philandering husbands; two of the deaths are unmarried women, one a tourist from Germany missing under suspicious circumstances, the other a longtime community member whose body turned up a few miles downriver from the town proper. While that in one sense narrows the field about what it is they’re facing, it widens the scope of possible culprits immensely.

Javert’s first instinct, even years after his resignation, is a detective’s: are the deaths connected? Without considering the supernatural, it’s entirely likely that they might not be. Or, at least, not all of them are necessarily connected to one another. While nine deaths in two months is statistically exorbitant, some of them can be attributed to natural causes or accidents; one of the dead tourists, for example, found in the shallows still within the town borders, could have easily slipped on wet leaves after the rain and hit his head on the rocky banks in the area, causing him to become unconscious in the water and die.

But while one mysterious death could be passed off as an unfortunate event, five bodies turning up in the river and four people going missing entirely is a reason to be very, very concerned. Which only makes the relative lack of police response time to the presence of people questioning the spate of deaths even more egregious. Were Javert in charge, and this were Montreuil, the level of alert would be through the ceiling, and the national police would have already been called in after the second wholesale disappearance. Much as it infuriates Javert that in cities like Paris disappearances like this just _happen_ , in a suburb like this, any number of deaths outside of natural causes is suspicious. It could easily be evidence of gang violence or human trafficking spilling out of Paris into surrounding areas, and action would need to be taken immediately to prevent the situation from worsening.

With the reality of the supernatural taken into account, however, nine deaths (for certainly all the missing people are dead, most likely still at the bottom of the river in deeper areas, or possibly devoured whole) connected to the river or in the river’s vicinity is a massive indicator of unnatural presence in the town. It doesn’t hurt that the patterns of deaths and disappearances don’t match what Javert remembers of the various MOs of the Parisian criminal underworld, leaving a neat hole for the more literal underworld to slip into in terms of operation and style.

Which leaves Javert an entire array of possible suspects when it comes to the monsters of Europe. Nixies, rusalka, naiads, the more mundane ghosts; whatever it is that lives in this part of the Seine, it’s not worried about keeping quiet, which makes Javert think that it’s a recent development in the area. Things that are dormant tend to stay that way. It’s always the young creatures that prey on society in reckless ways, leaving themselves wide open to tracking, and accordingly, vulnerable.

“How far along are you?” Valjean asks.

“The best I can do is tell you that it’s not natural, and it’s in the river,” Javert says. “Without the autopsy reports, I can’t be sure what the species is. You?”

Valjean frowns. “Not much better, I’m afraid. We’ve got a few suspects, nothing concrete. A few drowning cases in the Seventies, which probably fit the pattern if you’ve found one.”

“Tell me about them,” Javert commands.

“Two men, a woman, the woman found farther down river and one of the men discovered a season later in a dredging. The last man is missing still, but I’d put money that if we looked, we’d find his bones at the bottom of the river somewhere.”

“Any mutilation on the bodies found?” Javert probes. “Anything that can narrow the field?”

Valjean shakes his head minutely. “Not really. Other than being clumped together and the victims being generally strong swimmers, it seems almost like it could be a series of tragic accidents.”

“I might have something,” Marius pipes in.

Valjean turns to look at him, making a sound of interest.

“In 1956 ten people went missing in the river. It was enough that they put a fence along the riverside, but supposedly, a storm took out all the fencing a few years later, and the town never had it replaced. Sounds routine,” Marius says, “until you see the pictures of the fence after the storm. Come over here, take a look.”

Playing along, Javert stands and moves over to the microfilm viewer. Marius obligingly steps back, and as Javert squints into the yellow light and the small text, an image resolves: weathered fencing, not smashed into pieces the way a storm would indicate, but instead scarred with gouges, five brief furrows like the clawed fingers of a hand.

Javert stands back, blinking at the return to dim light.

“It looks like something took the wood apart with its claws,” Javert tells Valjean.

“Or someone with their fingers,” Marius says. “If it were something with claws, wouldn’t we see the markings in the picture? Look, the lines are rounded, like dragging your fingers through clay, or something else with enough give.”

“So not a nixie or a kelpie, then,” Valjean says.

“Not if it has fingers and not claws, no,” Javert confirms. “It’s most likely a ghost, then. Probably a rusalka.”

“Any leads on who it might’ve been?” Valjean asks Marius.

“The first person to die in these cases was a young woman, Ginette Lafarge, age 24.”

“And what makes her so special?” Javert asks.

“She’s the only death so far that’s listed as a suicide,” Marius says. “And the people who reported her dead, two friends of hers, a man and woman, both died in the river later that year in separate incidents.”

“Good work,” Valjean tells Marius, and the boy nearly preens under the praise, his chest pushing out a bit at the words.

“Now all we have to do is find the body,” Javert says. “Then we salt, burn, and leave. Easy enough.”

“Actually,” Marius says, squaring his jaw, “we’re not going to salt and burn her.”

 _“What,”_ Javert snaps, flatly.

“It’s disrespectful, and worse, it hurts the ghosts. You can’t pretend that it doesn’t, it’s like dying again. If ghosts are connected to the body, then destroying that is like destroying them.”

“And? Why is that relevant? Does it matter?” Javert asks. “Most of this job is disposing of ghosts; we don’t have time to sit around and _‘talk them into the light,’_ or whatever asinine idea you’re proposing,” Javert disparages. “It’s not a hunter’s place to shy away from dark things because they hurt. Our job is to put an end to any occult or unnatural threats and occurrences we encounter. Then we leave.”

“Your job, maybe,” Marius counters. “But there has to be answer that’s better than ‘search and destroy’ when it comes to the supernatural.”

“There isn’t,” Javert says. “Not one that isn’t a waste of time and resources.”

“So, what?” Marius fumes. “Brutality because it’s easy?”

“Brutality because it killed _nine people_ this year alone,” Javert barks, temper flaring. “Brutality because it works. You don’t _argue_ vampires into leaving an area, they only go somewhere else, or they eat you. You don’t _chastise_ a kelpie into simply not drowning people and eating the corpses.”

“We need to find our ghost before we can decide anything anyway,” Valjean intercedes. “And it’s getting late. The library will close soon, and I’m fairly certain we can come back tomorrow and find our dead person. I say we break for the night, search the graveyards, maybe.”

“That won’t be a help for you,” Marius tells them, and if Javert thought the witch had the spine for it, he’d say Marius’s tone is vindictive. “Ginette’s body was never recovered; the only thing that she left behind was an heirloom locket. It’s fair odds that she’s an object specter, and that’s probably long gone.”

“Could be at the bottom of the river,” Valjean says. “If her friends recovered the locket, I’d bet that her friend, the girl you mentioned, probably had it with her when she died out of a sense of sentimentality.”

“What, you don’t think that her friends murdered her?” Javert asks.

“It’d be typical to the case,” Valjean agrees, “but it doesn’t fit the pattern. If her friends had killed her, then once they knew or suspected anything supernatural or dangerous about the river, guilt and superstition would’ve probably driven them away if nothing else. Why go back if you were the murderer? And if not, why not keep the locket?”

Javert has to admit to himself that the logic is sound.

“Then what?” Marius asks, and Javert’s certain that it is sarcasm, now, in the young man’s voice. “You pull the thing out of the river with a big magnet?”

“No,” Valjean interjects, “it’s a pretty simple solution: I’m going swimming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I came to the realization that this is only the second time I’ve written from Javert’s perspective in this series. Who would’ve thought? I feel like I’ve been neglecting him, somehow. But all things come in time, I guess, and it simply wasn’t time for his perspective before this point in the plot. And yeah, I said plot! This series officially has one. I’m set to write out two more fics after this one, time and energy permitting. One of the outlines is even done, too. The mind boggles.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens.

It being incredibly suspicious (not to mention most likely illegal) to try and swim in the river at the park, they decide to search for the locket that night, once the cover of darkness can give them an edge. Marius smiles and nods at the librarian as they exit, and leaves in a different direction from Valjean and Javert, promising to meet up with them closer to midnight.

The motel that they rented is standard for these trips: shoddy, run down, just at the edge of the suburb proper in order to minimize costs and maximize anonymity. As such, there’s not much by way of a threshold protecting it. In fact, there wouldn’t be any sort of protection on this room but the chain lock if it weren’t for the temporary wards and charms that Javert and Valjean bring with them for occasions like this. Even those are weak, however, and when Javert steps through it, the sensation of the threshold parting around him is more like a faint breeze in open space than the curtain of power that surrounds Fantine’s apartment. It’s pathetic, but it’s better than nothing in the same way that Javert would rather have the built in chain lock on the motel door than nothing at all.

Valjean checks the room for intruders while Javert secures the charms and resets the salt lines with a hand on his knife and the supplies from Valjean’s duffle bag. The charm they use is nothing especially potent, just a trick Fantine had come up with a few years back after they’d found a vampire waiting for them in a motel closet. Javert checks the locks on the windows, the bullet casings on the sills, and pricks his thumb on the knife as he re-salts the floors. Salt in the cut stings, but it’s nothing to really complain about when it makes the temporary wards all that much safer.

“Clear,” Valjean announces, coming back into the room. “The wards?”

“Everything’s still set,” Javert confirms, and takes his hand off of his knife.

“Food or sleep?” Valjean asks. “We’ve got a few hours to kill before we meet up with Marius tonight.”

“Food,” Javert votes. “There’s no point in trying to sleep if we’ll only be waking up so soon.”

“I’d rather sleep, personally,” Valjean says.

“So why do you bother asking?” Javert questions him, to which Valjean only replies with a shrug.

Silence fills the room, after a moment. A few years ago, the lack of noise would have been stifling, lending the space an uncomfortable air. Now it’s mostly a fact of life, of close co-habitation, like calling Paris and listening to Fantine turn pages and breathe.

Without taking his clothes off, Valjean lies down on top of the bed, only removing his horrifically abused boots when Javert wrinkles his nose at the thought of them on the sheets they’ll have to share. Javert knows, in theory, that Valjean putting his boots on the motel bedspread won’t make their accommodations any filthier, but he balks at the thought regardless.

“Are you sure about the river?” Javert asks. 

“Unless you’ve got another way to get the locket out,” Valjean answers, eyes closed as he makes himself comfortable.

“We don’t even know that that’s the object in question. We’re not even sure if it’s an item-bound ghost or not,” Javert protests, adding, “and it’s the middle of the fall. You need to be positive, or someone’s going to get hurt.”

Javert would’ve brought the objection up sooner, had they been alone when Valjean came up with the plan. Rather, Javert would have barred it outright. The risk/reward ratio on this plan is so below the acceptable threshold that if they didn’t need to present a unified front to Marius, Javert wouldn’t even be playing along at this point in the game. As it is, the only recourse he has left is to complain and hope that Valjean sees reason.

“It’ll be brisk, then," Valjean shrugs.

Knowing Valjean, reason has generally been too much to ask for.

“You’ll catch hypothermia, then,” Javert retorts.

“I’ve swam in worse.”

Javert frowns. “Valjean, if you're talking about the Orion, you were reported dead after that.”

“But I survived, didn’t I?”

“And now there’s some other bastard in your grave because of how sure everyone was that you couldn’t have. Surely you can see the problem here.”

“Look,” Valjean says, voice mild and placating, “that was the winter, and there was a storm. This won’t be half so bad.”

“There has to be a smarter way to do this,” Javert complains.

“Can you think of one?” Valjean asks, throwing an arm over his eyes to block the light. “Because if you’ve got ideas, I’d be happy to hear them.”

The worst part is, Javert knows he doesn’t have any, which is the other reason he’s stuck complaining instead of offering alternatives. If he had another course of action, Javert knows that Valjean would make good on his word and listen, much as Javert suspects that he does stupid things for the sole purpose of driving him spare.

“Go get something to eat,” Valjean tells him. “You’ll feel better. Let me know if you come up with something when you get back.”

Javert closes the door behind him with care, making sure not to disturb the salt lines he’d set. Once he’s far enough from the door, he fishes this week’s burner phone out of his pocket, and dials Fantine.

The phone rings once, twice:

“Did you know Pontmercy was here?” Javert demands.

“And hello to you too,” Fantine’s tone is dry, amused. Annoyed at the response, Javert growls through the phone line, a sound that only makes Fantine laugh at him outright. “Calm down,” she tells him. “You like Musichetta, just work with her.”

“I tolerate her,” Javert corrects Fantine. “There’s a difference.”

“Only of degree,” Fantine counters. Javert can hear her smiling through the connection. “You’re like a cat.”

“Anyway,” Javert cuts her off, “that’s all irrelevant. She’s not here.”

“What?” Fantine asks. “Why not?”

“Arm’s broken,” Javert explains.

“Oh,” Fantine pauses. “Well that’s alright, then.”

Javert snorts, and starts wandering in search of a deli. In town's like this, there's always at least three or four, and Javert’s determined to find at least one of them. He’s craving turkey in the worst way, and he might as well get some protein in his body in case things go pear-shaped tonight.

“How’s Melun?” Fantine asks.

“Bad,” Javert replies seriously; there’s no use skirting around the issue. “Very bad. Enough deaths to be either a serial killer or a new drug lord looking to make it rich in the suburbs, and the police are so thin on the ground that I’ve only caught them tailing us once.”

“You elitist,” Fantine mocks him, but it’s clear her heart’s not in it, the moment the smile falls off her face nearly audible. Usually she’d be far more cutting with her remarks, especially in regards to his former profession.

“Did you warn him, that it was this bad?” Javert asks. “He doesn’t always give me all the details.”

“Not in as many words, but I implied it. Vidocq threw us this job,” Fantine tells him. “Usually I farm his stuff out to the convent, things like ghosts or missing animals, but this—” she trails off, last word soft in frustration. “Any leads?”

“Whatever it is, it’s in the water,” Javert says. “It kills in cycles, every now and again it’ll lure ten or so people to their deaths, then go back to being dormant. And it’s young, less than a century of activity as far as we can figure.”

“Shit,” on the other end of the phone, Fantine hisses the word through her missing teeth. “Javert,” she starts. “Javert, answer a question seriously for me, for a minute.”

“Go ahead,” Javert allows, not quite sure where this is going, and accordingly wary of what he can’t predict.

“Is Marius going to be more help or harm on this?”

“You really think we need the backup?” Javert complains. He scans the street for any sign of a restaurant. If he finds one, he’ll no doubt find more, and one of them will surely be to his liking; suburban planning at its finest.

“I don’t like this,” Fantine tells him. “Whatever this thing is, it’s young, and it’s got a body count. If you really think he’s going to get in the way, I’ll come down there myself, and I’ll send him home to make nice with his injured partner and her toddler.”

Javert pauses in his walk, the offer drawing him up short.

“Take a second,” Fantine urges him. “Think it through. I’m serious about this. If this thing is cyclical, I want it handled right the first time before we have to pass it on to the next generation.”

Back when Fantine first went into retirement, an offer like that came every few cases or so. She claimed she wanted out, but it was clear, especially in the early months, how used to the adrenaline she’d gotten. Fantine was looking for excuses all the time, trying to find a reason to follow the two of them back to the road and break her own promises. Now, though. Now Fantine’s sitting in the middle of a hunter’s contact web that spans the whole lifetime of her hunting career, and the idea of her shifting from her position of power, no matter how temporarily, is no small thing.

She’s worried, Javert realizes. The clear corrolary being: whatever’s going on here, it’s something to worry _about_.

“Fantine,” he says slowly, starting to walk again, “who else did you send here, before us?”

“You don’t know her,” Fantine grinds out.

“Probably not,” Javert agrees, “but if there’s a body to be recovered, I’d like to know that much.”

Fantine sighs, breath rattling the connection in a haze of static. “She lived,” Fantine tells him. “Barely. Her name was Chloé, one of the girls from the convent. Valjean might remember her, might not; she was an early class, not that long after he showed up. I gave her the job first because she was experienced, and it was close to home. She’s being groomed to take a higher position out in the country, and the only reason she survived is because her partner knew CPR. So I’m asking again: is Marius going to be a help to you, or not?”

Shifting the phone to his other hand, Javert looks at what he knows. Marius is incompetent, yes, but usually only in situations with mid-level stressors, as Javert’s personal experiences with him both at the Barricades and, years before that, at Gorbeau, can account for. And when the stakes are low, it doesn’t matter too much one way or the other if Marius screws up. And as for most high stakes situations, the witch tries to play to his own strengths, and provided that they account for that, Javert figures that he and Valjean will be able to use him as opposed to stumbling over him like so much street refuse.

Marius is graceless, and full of bad ideas, but he listens, enough. At the least, he’s taking their lead on this one so far. Marius is an idiot, but he’s an idiot who can be reasoned with, as well as an idiot who does decent research. More to his credit, he also seems to have discovered something of a backbone since the last time Javert was forced to work with him, though that was admittedly nearly a year ago.

On top of everything else, Marius is a witch. Usually, Javert would want nothing to do with witches, but not all ghosts are mundane in their causes, or typical in their abilities. If it’s a dead witch in that river as opposed to anything else, they’re going to want a spellcaster on their their team to compensate, and better Marius than anyone else Fantine would have to track down and contract for them. Witches hardly ever work with hunters, and by the time they got someone to Melun, the thing in the river might have gone dormant again.

Tempting as it would be to send Marius home to his infirm partner and tell Valjean to call off his idiotic plan, time is of the essence.

“Stay home,” Javert tells Fantine.

“You’re sure?” She asks. “This isn’t you being macho?” Javert can practically hear her squinting at him. It’s a rather remarkable effect.

“I don’t think there’s much you’d be able to do, even if you came down,” Javert says truthfully. “The best bet we have is a locket in the river, and we don’t know this isn’t a dead witch yet.”

“Let me know if anything changes,” Fantine demands. “I’m serious, Javert.”

“I will,” he assures her. “In the meantime,” he asks, rounding a corner and finding a bistro, “do you have any ideas how to get the thing out of the river?”

“Why?”

“Valjean’s going swimming after it,” Javert says, dryly.

“It’s October!” Fantine exclaims. “Christ, he’s going to catch hypothermia.”

“That’s what I said,” Javert grumbles, “but does he listen?”

“God,” Fantine complains. After a pause, Javert hears her go back to whatever obscure occult manuscript has her attention today.

“So,” she drawls, “what are you wearing?”

Javert snorts, and hangs up. The deli is small, homey, smelling of cold cuts and jalapeño peppers. Best of all, there’s bound to be a sandwich with his name on it somewhere on the menus hung over the counter; Javert’s always planned best on a full stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I thought I was going to update this fic sometime earlier in the evening, at a reasonable hour. It would've been the first time I managed to post any part of this whole series at a point in time when I wasn't horrifically sleep deprived or otherwise on an insomniac tear. And yet, here we are. It's nearly four in the morning here, and I'm posting this instead of sleeping.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time that night steals over the town, Javert still hasn’t thought of a better plan. At least, not a plan that he can use. Having a witch on the team, for all that it grinds at his sense of boundaries, is undeniably useful, opening all sorts of avenues of attack when it comes to solving magical problems. Unfortunately for Javert, the particular witch he’s been saddled with is Marius, who, much like magic in general, is only ever useful on his own turns, thus illustrating the behavior of magic in the specific, and Javert’s frustration with the practice as a whole.

Because every one of the plans that Javert was able to come up with in an afternoon revolve around magic. Which, in turn, means that they must involve Marius in no small part. Considering the boy’s vocal objection to Javert’s methodology, he doubts that Marius would be willing to entertain them. It would, for example, be a great help if Marius were to telekinetically lift the alleged locket from the river. Hell, Javert would be decently satisfied with a simple confirmation of the locket’s existence, at this point.

Given enough time, Javert _might_ be able badger Marius into alignment. Time is not on their side, however. The more Javert reviews the facts that he has, the clearer a picture he begins to get about what it is Valjean’s about to be diving after. One of the more alarming realities is that it’s going to disappear soon. In the past, the spates of suspicious drownings were usually confined to the late summer. Considering it’s October now, cutting it close to the wire doesn’t even begin to describe the time constraint they’re working with. Javert would be willing to leave a week, at maximum, of space to operate in before the trail goes entirely cold. Or, worse, a week until the ghost manages to kill another civilian, reaches the tenth death that was likely keeping it lingering this long into autumn, and _then_ vanishes.

Both options are entirely unacceptable. As such, Javert has been forced to default to Valjean’s utter tragedy of a plan; he’s not going to let anyone die for Marius’s moral objection to their problem solving methods.

But, Javert grouses to himself, watching Valjean strip sdown to his shirt and boxers at the river’s edge, getting his feet covered in mud, that doesn’t mean that to be agreeable about the situation.

“A rope is overkill, don’t you think?” Valjean asks, eyeing the object in question.

Javert scowls at him. Usually, watching Valjean take his clothes off is an apprehensive moment for reasons entirely unrelated to threat of death. More importantly, the third party to such occasions is, as a rule, not Marius.

“Just because this is one of your worse plans—” he says.

“Why thank you—”

“—doesn’t mean that we have to do it in the worst way possible,” Javert finishes, scowl deepening at the sight of Valjean’s grin. “Just take the damn rope. You’re the one who always packs it, anyways.”

“Can you even pull my weight?” Valjean asks, securing the rope around his waist despite the protest.

“You’re lighter in the water,” Javert replies. “And if you really get in trouble, Marius will help.”

Javert looks sideways at the witch, and hopes that his conveys his intent: Marius had better help if Valjean gets into trouble, considering that the unnecessary danger is his fault.

A few feet away, Marius winces slightly, but says nothing in response.

The spot they’ve picked for the dive is as close to secluded as they’re going to get for an island in the middle of the river. They’re set up at the farthest west point, grass slipping into the water down from the concrete and stone that made the road. The victim who was carrying the memento locket was lost somewhere close to here, and at two in the morning, they’re unlikely to be spotted. They’re a fair distance from any street lights, and not particularly close to the road. Suburban night patrols being what they are, Javert doubts that they’ll be disturbed by the police, either.

The air is chill, this close to the water. Not uncomfortably so, at least, not for Javert, who’s wearing two shirts and his coat. Valjean, though, he likely won’t be happy about having to get into the water, no matter how irritating a front he’d like to put on about the whole thing. Then again, the man does throw off heat like a dubiously human radiator.

“Are you sure about this?” Marius asks, speaking up for the first time as Valjean hands the end of the rope off to Javert.

“Do you have a better idea?” Valjean asks in return, using that infuriating mildness on someone else for a change. “I’m all ears, if you do.”

Marius hesitates. He stills his habitual fidget, glancing at Javert much the same way Javert has been keeping a sideways eye on him, before giving his attention back to Valjean. “Go for it,” Marius says, and that resolve Javert had caught glimpses of earlier in the days is back, straightening the boy’s spine and steadying his breathing.

With that, Valjean steps into the river.

A shiver runs up his frame as he reaches hip-depth, a hiss of air let out between his teeth before Valjean inhales in a deep, steady draw. Javert can see Valjean brace himself, his shoulderblades pulled in tight. Then, with an economy of movement that Javert still doesn’t quite understand, Valjean dives forwards into the dark, moonlight scattering on the water.

Javert has never been good at waiting. Not like this; tense stillness permeated by the _potential_ of danger instead of punctuated by its reality. Stakeouts, patrols; Javert understands those brands of tedium, familiar with them and all their relatives. But moments like this, they’re something else entirely. There’s no _action_ in this. No sense of purpose, despite what Javert understands, academically, about his duty in situations like these. Tailing a suspect, listening in on a conversation; that’s boring, but it’s work.

Waiting for Valjean is altogether too similar to the initial stages of a raid, and shares enough similarities in the tactical drawbacks to be nearly identical. All the preparation is done, but the use for all that work has yet to materialize.

It feels, every time that Javert is the one who has to wait, like every other time that this has ever happened. In his muscle memory, he’s bracing behind a barricade, blood and fire thick in the still air to come, waiting for the riot that will bring them into reality.

Out in the water, Valjean surfaces for a moment, light catching on his white hair as he pauses to breathe. Javert blinks, and Valjean is gone again, the long rope moving through his hands as Javert lets out the slack to keep the line taut.

“Are you really going to burn her out?” Marius asks, quiet words cutting through the still, damp air. “If he finds her down there, are you really going to destroy the locket?”

“Yes,” Javert answers, keeping his eyes on the river’s current.

“Is that the answer to every problem, for you?” Marius asks, disappointment, reproach laced into the tone of the question. “Salt, fire?”

“Sometimes a bullet works just as well,” Javert comments. “Though I prefer a knife. Iron and silver handle the rest.”

Next to him, Marius makes a disgusted little sound. “And all that decided in an afternoon,” he says. “Where’s the line, for you—” Marius cuts off with a wince, his attention whipping out to the water.

In Javert’s hands, the rope moves. Two sharp tugs, then a sustained pull that nearly rocks him off his feet with its force.

“Shit,” he swears, and digs his bootheels into the mud, trying to back himself up onto the paving stones for better traction. “Pontmercy!” He shouts.

Out on the water, the surface is still, save for the current.

To his credit, Marius doesn’t fumble as he grabs the rope at the anchor knot, leaning back to counterbalance all his weight against the the force on the line.

“We need to tie this off,” Javert hisses, wrenching himself backwards one step at a time.

“I can see them,” Marius says tightly. “She’s lit up like a flare down there, and Valjean—” Marius swallows, and a frisson of tension runs up Javert’s spine in reaction to the power the boy calls up. It coalesces around Marius, thick and malleable power coating his hands. Magic, invisible, unnerving _wrong_ spreads from Marius like a chemical spill, racing down the line under Javert’s hands.

“I can handle the rope but if we can’t get him out of the water, it won’t matter either way. She’s draining him,” Marius grinds out. “I can handle this—”

Javert nods, and drops the rope, flinging off his coat, and with it, nearly all of his knives. He doesn’t have the time to strip off his boots, so that leaves him his boot knife, but he knows that swimming is going to be all that much harder for that mixed mercy. As soon as he’s free of his coat, Javert fixes the position of the rope at his left, and throws himself into the Seine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got chapter five open in another window as I type this, so hopefully the cliffhanger won't last. [As I mentioned over on tumblr,](http://constancecomment.tumblr.com/post/121156424654/so-that-moment-when-a-thing-that-youre-writing) Flash is wrapping up fast now that I've got everything nailed down the way that I want it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big chapter this time. I keep putting these idiots in the river. This was always the plan. Or at least, it’s been the plan since February.
> 
> Massive thanks to [Vaincs](http://archiveofourown.org/users/vaincs), who beta'd this chapter.

The water is filthy. It’s cold, too, but adrenaline spurs Javert on, keeps him insulated from the temperature and the panic he can feel creeping up on him. He cuts awkwardly through the current with arms and legs, the dark, dirty water clouding his vision. If it weren’t for the melted plastic sensation of Marius’s magic coating the line somewhere to his left, Javert would already be lost in the river, his first five senses not helpful here.

His shoes slow him down, as do his clothes, fabric catching in the water. Drag pulls at him, making each stroke harder and less productive than he needs it to be. Breathing is labor, moving is work, steady and frustrating and filled with strain. Time is meaningless, in the Seine, but urgency stays with him — _too late, not fast enough_.

When Javert finally gets close enough to the ghost to feel its presence clearly, despair slams into him like a train, punching a hole under his sternum.

Javert chokes mid stroke, an arm slapping futilely against the water as he accidentally sucks in silt in a desperate attempt to breathe.

“Draining,” Marius had said; this is _drain_ , all right, though maybe not how the witch meant it. The ghost’s aura is a wordless voice like the Seine itself, empty and terrible and willing to take anything it’s given, including the trash.

Finally grabbing the rope, Javert forces his head above the surface, the sickly feeling of Marius’s power unsettling in his hands. Coughing and spluttering as he tries to clear his lungs, Javert tries to shove through the sudden, awful numbness that’s radiating up from his chest. The pain in his lungs and his throat helps, something physical he can leverage against the sucking void that’s opened up inside him.

The direction of the rope goes down, even as Marius’s power pulls it back. Javert sucks in a breath, let’s go of the rope, and dives, eyes open wide in the wet dirt.

In the water, the ghost is a dim, howling light. Angry, betrayed and so full of loathing; it hovers under the water in a smudge that Javert feels more than he sees. Valjean, on the other hand, is utterly still, and Javert cannot see him at all.

Javert strains down to reach him, and the ghost wails soundlessly at his intrusion into its private, airless space. Javert’s lungs seize again under the force of that emptiness, and he pushes down, stretches out, ignoring it as best he can. He feels out for Valjean’s aura in desperation, and to his suddenly terrified surprise, finds it; a smear of ash on skin, or liquid smoke. Knowing, familiarity tingles in his fingertips, even as his head fills with the pressure of the dive and empties under the weight of the Seine.

Panic finally breaks through the adrenaline at this discovery. Valjean is always so careful to be nothing more than human, to keep his aura under his skin, magically invisible to anyone who can access that extra sense. If he’s let his aura spill this far out, he’s likely unconscious, or close to it; even when he sleeps, Valjean is controlled. 

Javert closes his eyes, and kicks again. He’s running out of light down here, just as surely as he’s running out of air; he doesn’t want to rely on what clarity the ghost gives off, knowing he could be led so easily astray. Besides, Javert doesn’t need a light to know his way in the dark. Not down here, not like this, with Valjean sinking in the water and leaking into the night.

Between the two of them, there’s the ghost, a hole in the bottom of the world, barring the way. Javert doesn’t have time for this. With a desperate sweep, he propels himself through the angry ghost, and the train comes off the rails.

Cold, uncaring starlight; ash on skin; an unused gun. The city is tainted blood, fire, and human smoke, but the air above the Seine is clean, like a promise. It’s so quiet, in his head. In the distance, he can hear gunfire, and screaming, and malevolence is thick on the wind, pressing under his skin. Vertigo sets in, a familiar, comforting terror; he’s been falling for years. The air opens up to take him, and he feels it move around his hand, someone’s too-strong grip just missing his wrist.

In the present, Javert grabs hold of Valjean’s waist, and tangles the rope around his free hand, grounding himself in things that _aren’t this_. The rope burns with the plasticity of Marius’s will, and Valjean is all ash in his hands, the water around him thin and choking with it.

Pushing to the surface hurts. Javert feels tired somewhere under his bones, and his lungs screaming at him protest. Valjean is a dead weight in the water, heavy and cold, all the living heat sucked out of his body. Javert kicks upwards, hampered both by his boots and his burden, the Seine’s grasping fingers pulling at every inch his clothes. With one hand, he pulls at the spelled rope, and feels the water parting around him as it brings them back to shore.

When Javert breaks the surface, he’s closer to the bank than he thought he was when he dove. Marius’s work on the rope taints the water heavily now that the ghost’s cold, muffling rage is subsiding. Javert’s dive straight through its form must have disrupted it somehow, not that he ever wants to try that particular trick again.

Javert leans back in the water, wrenching Valjean’s head and chest above the waterline, shoving his arms under Valjean’s armpits for better leverage. Slowly, Marius’s magic reels them back to the shoreline. Javert presses his neck against Valjean’s, trying to soak in as much of that ash-smoke-safe as he can, looking for whatever proof of life he can get. Minutes without breathing would be deadly for anyone else, and the texture of ash-on-skin is cloying and ill used.

 _‘Please,’_ Javert thinks, and knows not where he directs the exhausted call.

“Shit,” Marius swears tersely, startling Javert wit his sudden closeness as Pontmercy charges the shallows. “Is he breathing?”

“I don’t know,” Javert manages to reply.

The adrenaline is leaving him, now. He shivers on the riverbank, October air still and frigid where it meets the water’s edge. There’s grass, under his hands, submerged in water and waving faintly in the night’s scattered lighting, stirred by by the current that even now pulls at his clothes. Javert feebly moves his fingers through it, and cannot feel a goddamn thing.

“Hey,” Marius urges him, shoving at Javert’s shoulder as he sits up. “You have to let go of him; you both need to get out of the water, and if he’s not breathing—”

Javert moves mechanically, forcing his grip to slacken as Marius pulls Valjean off of Javert in a flurry of frenetic anxiety and leaking, malleable energy. Words flow over Javert as he lies there in the mud and the shallows. His lungs struggle for air, burning from the denial of oxygen and the no doubt infectious impurities of the Seine.

 _Liquid smoke_ , Javert’s senses assure him. _Ash, safety, salt, love_. This is what Valjean is, when Javert can’t know him otherwise. Without his mannerisms, without the characteristic light that filters through him like the evening sun through a temple window.

The stars overhead are bright without the moon, as bright as stars can be this close to Paris. It is brutal, naive, to think that the cold, distant light used to bring him comfort, a constancy carried from his childhood to the city. The stars, Javert has learned, are phantom, dead things. The light that reaches Earth is no more real than any meaning Javert could attach to them.

“What the fuck did you _do_?” Marius asks, breathing heavily as he does chest compressions.

“It was in the way,” Javert says, staring up at the polluted light. “So I went through it.”

Next to him, Marius crows in slightly terrified triumph as Valjean takes a wracking, water-tainted breath, but Javert is still, looking up from the bottom of the river.

“Oh my god,” Marius swears. “Holy fucking shit, I just—”

“Javert?” Valjean asks. He sounds ruined, Javert’s name a demand broken by water.

“I’m here,” Javert says, and, slowly, forces himself to move, rolling onto his side.

“I found our ghost,” Valjean says distantly. Already, he tries to rise to his feet, and Javert is only just able to roll the rest of the way over, shoving himself up onto an elbow in order to look at him. “Colder than I thought it would be,” Valjean comments.

“It’s the middle of October,” Javert rasps, “of course it’s fucking cold.” His throat burns.

“What the actual fuck?” Marius breaks in, staring wild-eyed at Valjean. “You’re just, what, you’re okay now?”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Valjean protests mildly. “Just a bit chillier than I expected.”

“She was draining your fucking _life_ out there!” Marius exclaims. “You were bleeding out, practically. “You weren’t breathing on your own— you should be fucking dead, not walking around—”

Valjean shrugs, blank, awkward, his aura already pulling back, the overwhelming flavor of smoke starting to leave Javert’s mouth, letting the Seine’s foulness reassert itself.

“She put a fucking hole in your energy, and now you’re fine—” Marius squints at Valjean, suddenly. “What the hell are you?” He asks, shrewd, hypocritical—

“Drop it,” Javert tells him, jamming a knee into the mud, trying to brace himself enough to stand. “We’ll find you in the morning.”

“Are you serious?” Marius demands.

“What do you think we’re going to do from here, Pontmercy?” Javert asks bluntly, exhaustion no doubt coloring every word. “Go back into the water? We found the ghost, not its binding. We failed on this one, and now the parameters of the case have changed. So now I’ve got to call Fantine, because your dispatch should know when you fuck up.”

If Marius has anything else to say, Javert isn’t going to stick around to hear it.

Valjean, because he is an asshole, moves closer, and subtly helps Javert to his feet. His signature is already starting to fade, back to psychic null. By the time they get back to the motel, it will be as if Valjean were entirely human, unmistakable because he limps around Javert, not because Javert tastes smoke when they stand too close to one another, or because his presence is the feeling of ash smeared over his skin.

“In the morning, then, Marius,” Valjean says, and they leave Pontmercy behind, standing at the water’s edge.

The walk back is quiet, save Javert’s labored breathing. The island is silent, dimly lit and filled with little apartments, maybe fifty sleeping souls. Valjean limps, and Javert stands, shaking in his skin; _‘drain,’_ Marius had called it.

What do they look like, to civilian eyes? Javert, carrying his coat, Valjean practically carrying him, both of them absolutely soaked. Drunk, sad old men, who’d fallen into the river, walking under the bridge that connects the island back to the main part of Melun. If the police chose to make their appearance now, Javert’s not sure what he’d do, carrying this many knives. Probably throw his greatcoat into the Seine, which strikes him as a waste of a good tool.

Valjean doesn’t speak, as they leave the bridge’s shadow for its pathway. He doesn’t speak as they tread the streets, walking through Melun in the small hours of the morning, October air desperately chill on their skin. Javert keeps reaching out for him, without hands, looking for that smear of ash, that sense of _Valjean, alive, safe_. Instead, Javert has only what his body tells him; that he knows that gait, that frame that’s propping him up. That only Valjean, out of everyone he’s ever met, treats every corner like an ambush.

The rest of the way back to the motel is a blur, after the bridge. There’s a part of Javert that’s still at the bottom of that river. He concentrates on making sure he doesn’t trip over his own feet, the damp tracks of his boots shining in the streetlights as he leaves them behind.

When they cross the threshold into the motel, it parts with a weak gasp of power, and the salt is undisturbed. Javert moves slowly as Valjean clears the bathroom and the closet, pulling the knives in his coat out in order to reset the wards with his blood. The river’s grime stings in the cut, as does the salt, but the portable barricade struggles to life all the same, sated by the offering.

“I’m going to shower, Javert says, laying his knives out on the dresser so that they can dry. He’ll have to treat them later, the iron ones against rust, the silver ones against tarnishing.

Valjean nods at this. “I’ll join you,” he says, already taking off his shirt, the fabric muffling his words as he pulls it off over his head.

Javert doesn’t answer, only hangs his damp, muddy coat in the closet, pulling at his own clothes with shaking hands.

His boots are stuck to his feet, wet socks clinging to his skin. There’s enough suction there that even when they come free, they do with a horrible squelch. Javert wriggles his last knife out of his left boot, and puts it on the bed. A piece of cold iron wrapped in a leather sheath, a leather cord wrapped around one end for a handle, it’ll rust faster than the others if he doesn’t treat it by tomorrow.

With tired hands, Javert reaches for his undershirt, and fumblingly tries to get it out of the waistband of his pants.

“Here,” Valjean offers, hands appearing at Javert’s shoulder. Javert flinches, overtaxed nerves firing dully in surprise, pulling him into a reactive stance.

If Valjean takes offense to the jump, he says nothing, hands making quick enough work of Javert’s shirt as he steps into Javert’s line of sight.

“You’re so cold,” Valjean comments.

“It’s October,” Javert says, again, and rolls his soaked shirt off of his body.

“I can fix that,” Valjean says, and steps close, pulling at Javert’s belt to close the gap between them. Worn hands bracket Javert’s hips, broad palms pruned and waterlogged in a way that Javert’s nerves struggle to register as Valjean slips his hands into Javert’s jeans.

Javert steps away, legs unsteady underneath him, skin crawling at the contact. “Don’t,” he says, and Valjean moves back immediately, palms open in front of him. His eyes are wide, a little; a physical reaction to distress, Javert notes absently.

Javert pads into the bathroom, still in his jeans, and turns on the shower. After a second, Valjean follows him, now wearing nothing at all.

“More room here than at home,” Valjean says, the shadow of something old in his tone. “You should step in before you waste the heat.”

The water is warm. Javert angles his head down. Let’s the warm spray batter over him, falling into his eyes, beating a tattoo on his skull.

Heavy, deliberate steps place Valjean in the room in relation to him, and Valjean’s touch is less startling, now that some part of Javert is expecting it. Javert still jumps, his muscles tensing sharply at the sensation of someone else in his space. Is this how Valjean feels all the time, halfway out of his own skin? Javert can’t sense him anymore, just feels the hand on the small of his back, and the physical nearness of him as Valjean steps into the shower, crowding Javert closer to the wall.

“Lift up,” Valjean directs him. “I’m sorry I pressed. At least take your jeans off. We’ll just get clean, nothing else.”

Javert follows instructions, raising a leg as Valjean pulls down his jeans, kneeling down as Javert shakes them off, one unsteady foot at a time.

Valjean rests his head against Javert’s back once he’s done, forehead and wet curls pressing into the curve at the top of Javert’s ass where the briefs give way to skin.

“Are you alright?” Javert asks. His throat still hurts.

The answer is slow in coming. Javert can nearly hear Valjean thinking, for all that the absence of his presence grinds away at him like white noise. Valjean’s hands return to Javert’s hips as he slowly stands on creaking knees, reluctant to move away.

“What did you see, down there?” Valjean asks him, mouth just behind and below Javert’s ear. There’s something in the question that Javert can’t quite identify, quiet and muted by the sound of the shower.

“Nothing,” Javert says. “It was more like a feeling. But it’s always a feeling. I don’t—” Javert swallows, and his stomach roils against the lingering taste of the Seine. “I’m not good at explaining. It was dark,” he adds, the words lame even to his own ears. “It was cold.”

“Mm,” Valjean hums.

Javert leans forward, and presses his forearm against the wall, resting his forehead on his skin. He’s still shivering, and his legs are starting to shake under him, strain and exhaustion taking their toll. His chest hurts; Javert forces himself to take a deep breath, and knows that the air in his lungs is rancid.

A pair of hands alight on his back, one near his shoulder, the other close to the dip of his waist. Javert startles hard enough to nearly brain himself on the wall, his unstable feet coming out from under him as his body reacts without conscious input, an elbow slamming out behind Javert to try and beat his attacker. Valjean catches Javert awkwardly, bracing them both as best he can with the floor wet.

Sensation reveals itself in awkward patches, Javert’s skin jumping at the unexpected contact, some parts of him dead to the touch. Valjean curses behind him, slipping as they both careen towards the shower floor.

“You alright?” Valjean asks him, winded.

“I slammed my wrist on the wall,” Javert grits out, which isn’t an answer, not the one Valjean’s looking for, and Javert knows it.

“Let me see,” Valjean demands, and pulls at his arm.

Javert doesn’t resist, instead trying to force his body not to react like a startled deer at Valjean’s nearness. Even with his hands on Javert’s skin, Valjean is just human, or almost, in a way, less. Every living thing has an aura, even sufficiently magical things that don’t live at all. That Valjean keeps his so carefully suppressed makes him a blind spot in Javert’s field of view, and like this, he can’t stop reaching out for Valjean, trying to find the place where he’s gone.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” Valjean says after a moment’s inspection, his fingers probing gently at Javert’s wrist as they sit, hunched awkwardly on the floor of the motel shower. “You’re going to have a bruise, tomorrow. Do you want to stand, or get clean down here?” Valjean asks, after a moment.

“Whatever’s fastest,” Javert tells him, and Valjean nods, picking the soap up off the ground from where he must have dropped it in the fall. “Pass it to me?”

Standing, Valjean hands the soap over, the little travel bar well defined in its manufactured edges. Pressing it into his skin, Javert maps out the places with faulty sensation, tracking the places where his body fails him. His wrist aches, and he knows that his dignity has to be suffering, sitting almost naked on the floor of the motel’s shower, but he can’t bring himself to care. It’s hard to remember why he cares about anything, right now. Emptiness eats at him, like there’s too much water in his body and not enough air, no room for Javert himself left.

Eventually, the water gets cold. Valjean bends down in a motion that he telegraphs in long strokes, his hands where Javert can see them.

“You’re shivering,” Valjean remarks.

Javert looks up at him, and Valjean reaches out, tentatively wrapping a hand around Javert’s arm to pull him up.

Things blur, as Javert is lifted to his feet. Blood drains out of his already light head, leaving a gray, shapeless field instead of any real sight. The motel towels are tiny, but they work well enough as they both go from soaked to merely damp. Javert rummages for his clothes in the non-weapon duffle, pulling out a pair of sweatpants, a loose t-shirt Valjean picked up at a charity event the convent ran last, one of the shapeless extra-larges that they never quite manage to distribute all of.

Valjean puts a toothbrush and the toothpaste tube on the counter at his elbow, stepping around Javert in wide, obvious steps, his limp psychosomatic and heavy. Javert scrubs his teeth for what feels like minutes, and he swears his mouth still fills with the scent of the river with every breath, something old and primordial trapped in his lungs.

Javert looks at himself in the mirror without seeing, eyes unfocused. He doesn’t quite watch Valjean either, idly tracking his gait in the fogged glass, watching him pace. Javert leaves the bathroom, and Valjean moves past him, leaving the slightly door open behind him.

Checking the door locks doesn’t bring him peace. The deadbolt is secure, and the chain, and the standard lock as well, but something foreign still aches at him, a caution from years ago that he had mostly forgotten. Walking to the window to make sure the blinds are drawn, Javert picks up one of the little wards, Fantine’s portable threshold. An old bullet casing, hollowed out then filled with paper and drops of anise oil, a drop of blood from each of them. Home in a handful, small enough to hide in his pocket, or line the windows.

They rely on such small things to keep themselves safe.

“You could’ve drowned,” Javert says to the air as Valjean walks back into the room. “Almost did drown.”

“You caught me,” Valjean waves off. He sounds so firm, like that. Certain. Sure.

“But what if I didn’t?” Javert protests.

“What, I can’t trust you now?” Valjean replies. “That’s certainly going to make this partnership hard. Should’ve told me that years ago.”

“You’re being difficult on purpose,” Javert accuses him. He feels so tired. Empty. He doesn’t understand how Valjean can do this, how the risks are always unnecessary when Javert takes them, but perfectly acceptable when it’s Valjean’s life that’s in question. “All that fear,” Javert says, “and you think you’d learn to watch yourself. You always worry, but never about yourself.”

“I worry about myself all the time,” Valjean shrugs, free hand rubbing at his head with a thin towel. “Besides, I can take a beating better than you can.”

“I’m not _fragile_ ,” Javert spits. Anger is an old crutch, an energy that fills space and rarely stops burning. Javert grabs it with both hands, more than ready to be armed. “I’m not made of spun glass, you can’t—”

“I know,” Valjean interrupts him. “I know that! It’s why I trust you,” Valjean explains, and Javert hates this, _hates it_ that Valjean drops the towel, that he’s now stepping forward, holding his hand out like Javert is a stupid, wounded animal that needs coaxing. Like if he can explain his way through this latest fiasco it won’t matter anymore and—

Javert doesn’t lean into him. “You can’t make decisions for me like that,” he says, and meets Valjean’s eyes straight on, doesn’t look away from the things he can see there. “It’s just like your goddamn answering machine— you can’t decide things about me, my plans, and then _not listen_ when I bring up the same fucking problems about you.”

“Because you’re so good at listening yourself,” Valjean says.

Valjean’s mouth quirks up a little at one edge, and Javert remembers suddenly what it had felt like the last time Valjean had jumped into a river on his account, right out of a fucking hospital window. Javert hadn’t been smart enough to follow him, that time, and now all the rivers have brought them here, to this shitty little motel, in this placid little nightmare of a suburb. It’s been nearly two decades since then, and the rage still tastes the same where it sits behind his sternum, impotent and ashen in the hole the ghost cracked back open.

All the words Javert wants to say sound like _‘I listen,’_ and _‘I try,’_ but they stick in his throat and make him feel sick to his stomach. They’re too old for arguments like this— they’re not— theirs isn’t the fairytale life where they can bicker about things like they’re married, like at least they could pretend that whatever it is between the two of them is at least a contraption where all the parts move.

Javert settles into the bed, pulls up the covers, and feels cold. He doesn’t want to be having this argument anymore. He’d rather be asleep.

Valjean settles into bed behind him, and if Javert’s hearing were better, he’d be able to pick out the disgruntled mumbling Valjean is letting out behind him as he takes up the space in the rest of the bed. As it is, Javert just feels vibrations, the dip in the thin motel mattress as Valjean settles down.

There’s a distance in between them that is always deliberate, just enough space that a third person could fit themselves in if they were particularly determined, or small. Javert remembers, like the distant past, sleeping alone. At least then, he could sleep at night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a lifeguard, you guys. Rescue procedure is so important. Javert follows literally none of it, and the first aid in this chapter is awful, oh my god. As far as medical accuracy goes, Valjean is magic, he walks it off. Javert on the other hand, his symptoms look suspiciously like Shock. Out of the myriad ways to actually go into capital-S-Shock, they all involve blood pressure issues. Seeing as Javert wasn’t poisoned, allergic to water, or bleeding out, his symptoms would be sort of inexplicable. Except, yanno, the part where he fucking full body tackled a ghost.


End file.
